Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 4 Father and Mother

The first person who came across his mother's body was Ran Qing.

In the old, dark, wooden-shingled house, a rough rope dangling from the beams tightly gripped the woman's neck, deforming the flesh. Her features were distorted, her eyes bulging outward, nearly falling out of their sockets. The pain of suffocation was frozen in the woman's face, making her death look incredibly gruesome...

Ran Qing will never forget that scene.

That was his mother, his gentle and kind mother.

The corpse hanging from the ceiling of the rental house in front of him looked exactly like his mother back then!
Even the miserable and painful face is exactly the same as my mother's back then!
Ran Qing's whole body was stiff and cold, and the shadow of his childhood instantly came to his mind.

After his mother hanged herself to death, he cried for a long time and wanted to find the thing his mother turned into after her death.

Although grandma said that those who died are no longer our relatives, they have no memories and no feelings.

But Ran Qing still wanted to see her, because she was his only mother, the person who loved him most in the world.

But Ran Qing ran all over the village, but he still couldn't see what his mother turned into after her death.

Many years had passed since then. Ran Qing had never expected that his mother's body would appear next to him, even hanging above his head!
Staring at the corpse on the ceiling, Ran Qing's whole body stiffened, and for a moment he didn't know what to do.

In the field of vision, the thing was hanging on the ceiling, motionless.

It had no intention of moving or attacking Ran Qing. It just hung there stiffly and painfully, with its hands hanging limply. It didn't even give Ran Qing any feeling of coldness and fear. It was completely different from the "dead things" Ran Qing had seen in the past.

It seems that what is hanging here is really just a corpse.

A ray of dim moonlight shone into the room from behind Ran Qing and fell on the thing.

Ran Qing's pupils constricted again.

Because when the moonlight fell on the corpse, a shadow appeared in the house.

Those dead things have no substance and no shadow. But this corpse hanging from the ceiling has a shadow?!
Ran Qing stood up suddenly and subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch the physical corpse.

But just as he reached out his hand, a shrill cry of a child suddenly woke everything up.

Ran Qing looked up in surprise and found that the lights in the room had been turned on at some point.

Under the dim light, everything in the rental house was normal. There was no moss on the ceiling and the textbooks were neatly stacked on the desk.

He stood in the corner of the rental house, keeping his hand outstretched.

But there was no body hanging from the ceiling ahead. The strong stench in the air also quietly disappeared.

The rental house in front of him looked so normal, as if everything that had just happened was just an illusion.

Ran Qing was stunned when he saw all this.

Were the horrific experiences just now just nightmares?

But that extremely real feeling is not comparable to dreams at all.

The crying of the little boy downstairs continued to be heard.

Xiao Erwa's grandmother was very confused.

"Why is it swollen again?"

Then came the voices of other adults, waking up the entire Chen family.

Ran Qing, who heard the crying child, hesitated for a moment, then quietly stuck half of his face out from the edge of the window and looked at the courtyard downstairs.

In a narrow cement-paved courtyard, a pool of wet rice lay quietly on the cement floor, but the water had evaporated, leaving only the rice grains.

Not far from the scattered rice grains, a strange old man wearing a black shroud, with his head lowered and his hands hanging down, stood quietly in the moonlight.

The old man had no shadow, and his right foot below the ankle was completely empty.

This terrifying old man is back again...

The moment he saw the old man, a chill that only came from seeing that kind of thing crept up Ran Qing's spine.

His face was ashen as he murmured to himself, "It's not a dream!"

Ran Qing quietly retreated back under the window.

Holding the small round mirror in his hand, he stared straight at the room in front of him.

As his eyes swept across the ground, his pupils contracted slightly.

There were some water stains on the floor that seemed fine at first glance.

The water stains were hidden in the dirty cement floor and were almost invisible in the dim light.

But when you get closer, you can vaguely make out that the water stains on the floor are footprints.

Someone walked around his house, leaving a trail of wet footprints.

Ran Qing's face became even uglier.

Just now, a scary "girl" wearing the uniform of No. 3 Middle School came to him, broke into his room, and wandered around the room.

But for some reason, Ran Qing missed that thing.

It didn't find Ran Qing, and Ran Qing didn't see it...

Only after that thing retreated did the scary old man downstairs return.

After realizing this, Ran Qing felt a chill on his back.

What happened tonight was too bizarre and complicated, and the huge amount of information made Ran Qing overwhelmed.

The most important thing is that his mother who passed away many years ago was involved!

He actually saw his mother's dead body!
What exactly is going on?

The crying of the little boy downstairs continued.

As the terrifying old man returned, the child's ankle began to swell again.

This is really an evil spirit.

Ran Qing stayed in the room silently for a long time, listening to the crying of the children downstairs, and finally took a deep breath.

He clutched the mirror in his hand, put on his shoes and went out.

The smooth mirror reflected Ran Qing's pale face. A series of shocking events had made him look extremely bad.

But he resolutely pushed the door open and walked into the dark corridor outside, wanting to find out what happened tonight.

He happened to know someone who might know...

Ran Qing walked slowly down the dark corridor. Although there was no light, he was already familiar with this corridor. He went downstairs in the dark and came to the front door of Old Chen's house.

Before grandma passed away, she held Ran Qing's hand with worry and cried.

"My poor grandson, what will he do alone in the future..."

But Ran Qing is not actually an orphan.

After his mother passed away, although he lived with his grandmother, Ran Qing's father was still alive.

It’s just that the man got married and had a new family.

Ever since his father got married, Ran Qing has been quiet and hasn't disturbed him.

But tonight, he had to disturb the man.

After going downstairs and knocking on the door of Old Chen's house, Xiao Erwa's mother, the stout and dark woman, opened the door and looked at Ran Qing at the door in confusion.

On the cement ground at the back, a terrifying old man without a shadow watched all this indifferently, his empty right trouser leg swaying slightly in the night wind.

Ran Qing's body suddenly stiffened. When the dark-skinned woman opened the door, the terrifying old man behind her actually looked at Ran Qing!
Feeling the cold gaze of the terrifying old man behind him, Ran Qing felt cold all over.

At this moment, he clearly felt a kind of cold malice.

But the stiffness of his body only lasted for a few seconds. Ran Qing endured the discomfort and pretended everything was normal.

The old man behind him was too weird and terrifying. If the other party realized that Ran Qing could see it, there was no way to know how the old man would react.

Ran Qing could only pretend to be calm and force a smile at the dark-skinned woman in front of him.

"...Auntie, I want to make a phone call."

Old Chen has a landline at home. He and his family are used to nearby residents calling him and have set a price.

The dark-skinned woman nodded directly and stepped aside: "Come in quickly, the little boy's foot is swollen, and his crying disturbed your sleep, right?"

The dark-skinned woman apologized somewhat embarrassedly.

In the brightly lit house, the Chen family was all there, busying themselves with the little boy's swollen ankle.

Ran Qing took a glance and saw that the swelling on the child's ankle was indeed very large and looked shocking.

He kept crying and the adults could do nothing about it.

Xiao Erwa's grandmother said, "...I'll carry Xiao Erwa on my back and ask Chen Laosan for help."

Chen Laosan was a Mila, a local charlatan who could perform shamanic dances and exorcise evil spirits. He lived not far from Qingyuan Road.

But Ran Qing knew that the guy was a liar and had no skills.

However, Xiao Erwa’s grandfather said that it was not good to disturb others so late at night, so he went in the morning. The family argued endlessly.

Ran Qing walked through the main house without any sense of presence, walked silently to the corner of the room, picked up the landline phone, and dialed the number he had never called before.

beep - beep - beep -

The beeping sound of the dialing phone continued for a long time.

Just when Ran Qingdu was about to hang up the phone and dial again, the call was finally connected.

But the voice that came from the phone was not Ran Qing's father's, but a somewhat tired woman's voice.

"……Hello?"

Hearing this voice, Ran Qing's expression froze slightly.

After three seconds of stiff silence, he slowly said, "Auntie, it's me, Ran Qing. I'm looking for my dad."

After hearing Ran Qing's voice, the woman on the other end of the phone fell silent, as if she had not expected Ran Qing to call her in the middle of the night.

After a long while, she said, "Your father is on a business trip and is not at home now."

The woman's voice was flat, and no emotion could be detected.

"But I have the phone number of the guesthouse where he stayed on his business trip. You call this number..."

The woman read out a phone number, and judging from the area code, it was a long-distance call from another province.

After politely thanking the woman, Ran Qing hung up the phone and dialed the long distance number.

It was another long wait. The grandparents of the little boy next to them were already engaged in a fierce quarrel, with Old Chen caught in the middle.

And Ran Qing's call was finally connected at this time.

The tired and sleepy voice of a middle-aged man came from the handheld microphone.

"...who?"

Ran Qing's heart suddenly tightened.

The hand holding the microphone also began to sweat.

He hadn't heard this extremely familiar yet extremely unfamiliar voice for a long time.

Now when I hear it again, I feel a little dazed.

After a while, Ran Qing spoke slowly.

"Dad, it's me..."

Ran Qing's voice made the middle-aged man on the other end of the phone suddenly silent.

For a moment, Ran Qing didn't know what to say.

A strange silence fell between the father and son.

Both parties holding the microphone fell silent at the same time.

In the end, after hesitating for a while, Ran Qing stammered out some incoherent words.

"Dad, I saw my mom..."

Ran Qing immediately regretted what he said and was worried whether his father could understand what he said.

This is nonsense and incomprehensible!
Ran Qing subconsciously opened his mouth to add some explanation.

But before he could open his mouth, the middle-aged man on the other end of the phone suddenly became serious.

"Um?!"

(End of this chapter)